Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has said that scoring a podium position at this past weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix was possible but the team failed to do so because of its race strategy.

Ferrari opted for a two-pit strategy rather than a three-pit strategy which was used by McLaren.

“Probably we would have finished on the podium, but we need to look into all the details with the engineers. I am happy with my race; I think it was my best this year and maybe even the best including last year. We need to work out how to improve the car, especially in qualifying,” said the Brazilian.

As a result, Felipe Massa finished in 6th place ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso who finished in 7th place ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes. However, Massa believes that if he went for another pit stop, he could have pushed his car to its limits at the end of the race and he probably would have scored more points with the new tyres.

“The strategy? Now, it's easy to say that we were not on the right one, but we are a team and we take our decisions together. [Sebastian] Vettel made the same choice as us and we had a reasonably similar pace,” said Massa.

He stated that his team was unable to improve its car in terms of pace because of which McLaren and Red Bull Racing Team once again took the advantage both during the race and in the qualifying sessions. Massa urged his team to find a solution to this problem before the European phase of the 2011 Formula 1 season which will begin after the Turkish Grand Prix.

The European tracks are more technical as compared to the Asian tracks and teams need stronger cars to compete in those.

Since the next race of the season, the Turkish Grand Prix is scheduled to be held in three weeks time, Ferrari have a lot of time up their sleeves to improve their car.